Surf for Thursday – Peaking W swell…and a touch of wind?

Thursday is looking pretty surfable but we may have some onshore wind issues in a few areas.

Swellwise we are going to see a solid W swell (270-300 but with most of the energy around 285-300) and a new pulse of S-SSW swell (180-200) that will both be peaking on Thursday. Some local WNW windswell may develop in the background as well. Here is a shot from the CDIP this afternoon…I am expecting to see more S swell in the mix by tomorrow morning.



Surf sizes are going to hold around shoulder-head high on the sets for the average exposed spots that are both W facing or can pick up some of the swell combo. Top NW facing breaks and the excellent combo spots will be more consistently around head high with overhead peaks mixing in at times, particularly the low tides. Look for the biggest sizes at the NW facing standouts in Ventura, the South Bay, and most of San Diego (but particularly southern San Diego). The top combo spots will be along the better exposed areas of Orange County, North San Diego, and a few of the more exposed areas in North LA/South Ventura.

Winds are where we might have a couple of issues…looking at the winds tonight it seems like it would be a sure thing for light/variable conditions for tomorrow...but forecast models are calling for the back-end of this front to push through the area and possibly set up some WNW clearing winds that generally follow these storms. Check out the two models for tomorrow…





According to these runs we could potentially see some NW winds around 8-10 knots for the morning at the more exposed areas. Personally I think that the models are being a bit too aggressive with the morning winds, and that the lack of cloud cover (and the corresponding dropping air temps) may knock down those wind speeds showing on the models.

So for tomorrow I think that we should plan on a little morning texture…enough that it might be worth looking at the cams or the wind stations before jamming to the beach…but I don’t think that it will be completely blown out. Afternoon winds will strengthen into the 10-15 knot+ range…so the cleanest window will likely be in the morning.

Again the water quality isn’t going to be that great tomorrow…so you may want to wait another day or two before surfing any rivermouths or storm drains…but the swell mix will be running pretty solid and if the winds hold up we could be looking at a fun day of surf.

Here are the tides…

01:34AM LDT 0.2 L
07:47AM LDT 5.5 H
02:06PM LDT 0.6 L
07:56PM LDT 5.2 H